The Data Expansion Tool is a tool which will generate data in the current Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations environment.  The tool itself is not documented and the video which demonstrated it has been lost because the Office Mix web site was retired.  It enables you to record transactions which are occurring in F&O then recreate those in the same or another environment by replaying those transactions.

The tool can be found at System Administration > Periodic Tasks > Data Expansion Tool

When I attempted to create a new project in a 10.0.4 OneBox I received the following error:

Tracing the error through /Classes/DataExpLogMan.getEventPublisherName() uncovered that F&O is looking for a missing event log called “Microsoft-Dynamics-AX-ExecutionTraces.”  Denis Macchinetti already uncovered how to fix the issue by running the PowerShell script as Administrator and it worked in this case as well.
cd "C:\AOSService\webroot\Monitoring"

$resourcefiledir = “C:\AOSService\webroot”
$inputmanfile = “C:\AOSService\webroot\Monitoring\DynamicsAXExecutionTraces.man”
$outputmanfile = “C:\AOSService\webroot\Monitoring\DynamicsAXExecutionTraces_copy.man”
$temp = Get-Content $inputmanfile
$temp = $temp -replace “%APPROOT%”,$resourcefiledir
$temp | out-file $outputmanfile
wevtutil im $outputmanfile

$inputmanfile = “C:\AOSService\webroot\Monitoring\DynamicsAXXppExecutionTraces.man”
$outputmanfile = “C:\AOSService\webroot\Monitoring\DynamicsAXXppExecutionTraces_copy.man”
$temp = Get-Content $inputmanfile
$temp = $temp -replace “%APPROOT%”,$resourcefiledir
$temp | out-file $outputmanfile
wevtutil im $outputmanfile

Look out for my next blog on how to use the Data Expansion Tool!